OH — IO!

On Friday, July 30, we get up at the crack of dawn to catch a flight to Detroit and visit friends and family in Ohio. Do you believe that in order to catch a 6:20 am flight you have to be at the airport at 5:00 am! And of course that was the least expensive flight, so we “had” to do it!

Our flights were on time and after a brief (30 min) plane change in Chicago (yes, we flew to Chicago to go to Detroit!) we arrive at Detroit Regional Airport (DTW). I was pleasantly surprised with how nice it was! I was expecting city, city, city, but it was actually quite green and pretty!

We picked up our rental car and met Erik and Sarah (son and daughter-in-law) and Roland and Joyce (daughter-in-law’s parents) at Tony Packo’s in Toledo for lunch. For those of you who are M*A*S*H fans, this is Klinger’s favorite place! And now, we know why! Food was delicious and inexpensive! And the staff are great – loved hearing them yell our order!

We made to Erik and Sarah’s new home (for now) and got the tour and then headed to our friends Chad & Cheryl’s home (where we were staying). Chad and Cheryl invited Erik, Sarah, Roland and Joyce to join us for dinner and outdid themselves preparing it! We had chicken and shrimp on the grill, fresh corn on the cob and an awesome salad with home made bread. Dessert was a homemade yummy pineapple pie! We got to meet Chad and Cheryl’s twin boys, Caleb and Cole – I had seen pics but had never actually seen them! They were such well behaved kids!

The following day we hung out at Erik and Sarah’s and got a tour of downtown Perrysburg (and a yummy frappuccino at My Daily Grind) and headed off to another couple of friends from Seminary – Marty and Angela’s for dinner! Marty outdid himself in the kitchen (which is to be expected from Marty!). We had grilled bacon wrapped filet mignon and bacon wrapped chicken – oh so good! There was an amazing salad that had stuff in it I can’t even begin to name…one of them being the most amazing goat cheese I have ever had! I was so fixated on this cheese, I can’t even tell you what else dinner consisted of, but boy was it good!

Sunday was the “big day”! We all went to church at Chad’s church in Haskins, St. Paul Lutheran where they had a great contemporary service with a praise band – gotta love a praise band! After church, Cheryl and Chad again hosted us for an amazing lunch…Cheryl made this yummy pasta dish with whole wheat pasta, fresh garden tomatoes, fresh basil and cream cheese – it was to die for! Along with it was a great home made bread (gosh I love bread!) and Chad shared his peanut butter pie that someone from his church made for his birthday! Holy cow was that good!

Roland and Joyce stayed with us at Chad and Cheryl’s while Erik and Sarah went back to their place to prepare for Sarah’s ordination! The ordination was held at St. Mark’s Lutheran in Bowling Green and if you’re interested in what an Ordination is like, Erik did streaming video of the service and it’s available to watch online here. It’s broken up into several parts.

So Sarah is officially a Lutheran Pastor of the ELCA! We’re very proud of her as were her parents who openly wept during her ordination. It’s really an emotional time! What can you possibly do to top that? Go to Sonic of course! Okay, not really, but we see so many commercials for Sonic and the nearest one is 30 miles away in MA (actually up until now I thought they were much farther away…may need to make a road trip!)

So on Tuesday, after five days in Ohio, we headed back to New Hampshire. This time our stop-over was in Baltimore! We made it home and in our bed by midnight.